Bats beyond Twilight

A three-part video series takes us on a tour of these enigmatic winged mammals

November 24, 2008

Image courtesy of Dartmouth's Thayer School of Engineering

A recent mystery has been finally solved about the bat. Scientists have long debated which came first in its evolution: the ability to fly or its faculty for locating objects by emitting and receiving high-frequency sounds, called echolocation. A recent fossil discovery dating back more than 52 million years has provided the much sought answer.

In the following three-part video series, Nancy Simmons, chair of the Division of Vertebrate Zoology and curator of mammalogy at the American Museum of Natural History, lifts the shroud of mystery on these pariahs of the night, and shows us the actual fossil that provided the famous missing link.